Timely: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/if-opening-schools-is-about-equity-why-arent-we-listening-to-those-most-impacted-a1ca6fab8506 And all for the hand wringing about disadvantaged kids falling farther behind with online schooling, it seems that the rush to reopen schools often actually does MORE to increase the learning gap, because it's typically the wealthier and whiter families sending their kids back in person, dividing the attention of teachers and making the virtual experience worse for kids who stay home.

thanks--I did see it, and I've seen her stuff before on twitter. Yeah, it's hugely problematic that we're focusing on student cases for a lot of reasons: kids are likely to be mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, parents have no obligation to test or to report test results to the schools, a lot of places won't test asymptomatic kids and/or discourage testing mildly symptomatic kids, there's a big incentive for parents not to report because they know that's what drives quarantines, etc. etc. Without better contact tracing and widespread asymptomatic testing, we have no idea what the real story is. Even in the district I mentioned with no mask mandate parrots the "transmission isn't happening in schools" line...as if there's some OTHER reason why their schools have an incidence rate 2 or 3 times higher than neighboring counties where everyone's wearing a mask; it has nothing whatsoever to do with putting 30 unmasked people together in a room for hours at a time. Like...how do they THINK viruses spread?!

Data is infuriatingly hard to come by, but most of the stuff I've seen reassuring everyone that transmission isn't happening in schools pretty much ignores the fact that teachers and staff exist. Everywhere I've been able to run the numbers, the incidence rate in teachers and staff doing in person school is significantly higher than in the community as a whole--much better in places taking basic precautions, but still higher. Here's a Bloomberg article about CDC research that says schools can open with precautions (I should note that schools have been open in my area since fall, with varying degrees of precautions, and NONE of the schools that are open are following all the CDC guidelines): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-13/covid-19-outbreaks-aren-t-driven-by-in-person-classes-cdc-says And here's a quote tacked on at the end: "The report offered no insight on the risks to school teachers and staff members, as there is no information gathering nationwide on their infection rates." oh, btw, this isn't about teachers and staff, because actually we have no clue. I don't know. My husband has been teaching in person since the fall and feels fairly safe in his classroom (where masks are required and he strictly enforces that, wearing 2 masks himself, distancing (his students can't distance, but he can), and sitting next to an air purifier). I'm not as confident in his safety as he is. I think people in areas where schools have never reopened have a totally different perspective on this from those of us in areas where schools have been open all year. The county north of me has been open since August with no mask requirement, very few students wearing masks--last I checked the incidence rate for teachers there was something like 8-9 times as high as the county overall. When the CDC clarified a couple of weeks ago that the new mask mandate on transportation DOES apply to school buses, they insisted that it doesn't really apply to them. This isn't some tiny school district; it's an exurban county with more than 40,000 students. That county AND counties that were taking more precautions pretty much all had to delay opening after winter break by 1-2 weeks because they literally didn't have enough teachers to staff the schools. My husband's school has shut back down 3-4 times since October because of outbreaks. When kids are in school, they're mostly sitting in a classroom with a handful of other students watching my husband do math on a computer, because he's teaching virtually at the same time. I think, "probably elementary schools at least are fine" and then 3 elementary teachers die in one week in the county next door to mine. The governor in my state moved everyone over 65 and first responders into 1a, so no telling when teachers and other essential workers can be vaccinated. And, as others have pointed out, we're NOT having this discussion primarily on behalf of disadvantaged kids, and we can't pretend that we are. It is overwhelmingly white, privileged families who are choosing to return to F2F school when there's an choice between that and virtual. The communities that need school most for economic reasons are also the communities that are most affected by COVID, and by and large they're choosing to keep their kids home despite the costs. My county is 50% in person, and those 50% are largely in the more wealthy and whiter northern half of the county. Here's a cheerful piece from my local paper this morning on a long hauler teacher who couldn't get an ADA accommodation: https://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett-teacher-struggles-with-covid-19-symptoms-almost-a-year-later/LFTYY7T7MRDQZMWDQGQEKRFFIU/ Like I said, I don't know what the answer is, but I do think we need to be honest about the risks we're asking/demanding teachers and all essential workers to take on.

I just mean that the definition of a comparison is showing the ways in which two things are similar or dissimilar. You said that chicken pox and COVID are similar in that neither are serious enough to children, in your opinion, to justify widespread vaccination. You literally compared the two: "So for me, I don’t think those particular vaccines, safe or not, are necessary." I wasn't saying that you were suggesting they were the same disease in some other fundamental way.

semantics, but I consider saying that you classify both as not dangerous enough to children to warrant a vaccine a comparison. At what point is a disease dangerous enough? it's not dozens of deaths per year, and it's not 170+

My point was that you were comparing chicken pox to covid, but covid appears to be significantly more dangerous. Although my tangential point is that the chicken pox vaccine has saved hundreds of American children's lives, and you haven't answered whether you think the vaccine is more dangerous than chicken pox (i.e. do you believe that dozens of children every year die from the chicken pox vaccine?) and, if not, why wouldn't it be worth saving dozens of children every year?

In contrast, there were an average of 90 chicken pox deaths a year in the US between 1970 and 1994 (i.e. pre-vaccine), about 60% of them in children (interestingly, the deaths shifted from mostly children to mostly adults during the time period studied). https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/182/2/383/2190935 Putting aside the fact that chicken pox not being very dangerous probably wasn't a lot of comfort to the parents of the dozens of children every year who DID die from it, it appears that COVID is substantially more dangerous to kids, even putting aside long term complications.

I took my mother and stepfather to get their second pfizer doses yesterday at a county board of health place. They were in there over an hour, but they said everything was well organized. They had just sore arms after the first dose, and she says that's all they have this time as well. All my close family (parents, in-laws, grandmother) have now gotten at least one dose, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. Now onto worrying about next round people--my stepmother who's still under 65 but has stage 4 cancer, my husband who's a teacher, etc. etc.

My dad reports that he got his second dose (pfizer) yesterday, with no side effects whatsoever. He says he had a sore arm with his first dose, not even that with the second.

I got my mother and stepfather scheduled for their second doses next week. They have to go to a place 40 minutes south of where they got their first doses, because there are no appointments available at the same place. Which means I have to drive them, because they won't do long interstate drives. I continue to be unimpressed about how hard this must be for seniors who don't have anyone to help them navigate. I'm sure my mom's not the only over 65 year old uncomfortable driving 40 minutes on the interstate through Atlanta. But a week from tomorrow they'll be all vaccinated! My Dad works at a nursing home, so he's already had his, as has my grandmother who lives in an assisted living place. And my FIL in CA just got his first dose and my MIL has her appointment later this week. All my old people are getting vaccinated!

Laura Ingalls Wilder. We were listening to the audiobook of The Long Winter back in March when things got going here, and I've had many reasons to call to mind parallels since then.

Are other places NOT distributing to CVS, Walgreens, etc? There are a million places you can TRY to get a vaccine here, but it's still like winning the lottery to actually score an appointment anywhere. I managed to get my mother and stepdad appointments (at the health department) because I spend too much time on facebook and saw someone post that were openings and jumped on immediately. There are huge issues with access for seniors who aren't internet savvy and don't have extended family helping them out. My mother's in her late 60s and fairly competent with a computer, and she still had trouble navigating the whole thing. I've heard of people in their 70s and 80s spending all day driving around to various places that distribute vaccines trying to get an appointment. Re: teachers. The governor here moved everyone over 65 and first responders into 1a, essentially pushing teachers way down the list. Here most schools ARE open and have been for months, many with no mask mandate. Now there are 2 million people in 1a fighting for around 150,000 doses a week, schools keep shutting down because they have too many sick teachers and no substitutes, and there are dead teachers in the news all the time. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that 1. I'm happy and relieved that my mom and stepdad got their shots and 2. they can stay home, and my husband can't

I wear leggings and knit dresses, umm...pretty much every day. Sometimes I put on a scarf or a necklace if I want to look super fancy! I buy cheap ones from old navy a lot, but my favorite is the Rowena swing dress from Wool&: https://wooland.com/products/rowena-merino-wool-swing-dress-standard-fit?variant=32122764197958 It's pricey, but it's wool, so it holds up a whole lot better than my cheap old navy stuff.

how cool! Yes, we were pretty worried last spring that he kept taking the train in to teach a class--but nothing keeps Grandpa away from math 😉

He does! And he's the only reason I have any idea what an Erdos number is 😂. But, yeah, my husband grew up with Paul Erdos staying at their house regularly.

I'm so, so sorry. Thinking of you.

In honor of the great Hank Aaron, here's a Numberphile episode featuring my father-in-law, talking about how Hank Aaron is indirectly responsible for his career in number theory. For anyone who's at all interested in both math and baseball--the math in it is pretty accessible: https://www.numberphile.com/videos/aaron-numbers If you don't have time to watch the video, my FIL is a number theorist, and early on in his career Hank Aaron hit his 715th homerun to beat Babe Ruth's record of 714...my FIL wrote a paper, not a very serious one, about some interesting quirks about 714 and 715, and it caught the attention of mathematician Paul Erdos. Who then visited him and collaborated on a paper with him and then many more papers, which had a huge impact on his career. And then years later he and Erdos both ended up at an event that also had Hank Aaron in attendance, and he ended up with a baseball signed by both Paul Erdos and Hank Aaron. We came pretty close to naming a baby Henry/Hank a couple of times partially in honor of Hank Aaron...it's more or less a family name, really 😉

My middle two spend a lot of time over at a friend's house hanging out outside. They bundle up (they got snuggies for Christmas 🙂 ) and play on the switch or watch shows/movies on his outdoor projector set up or just hang out and talk. He lives a mile away, so they also get a little exercise walking or biking over there as a bonus. They keep up with other friends online; they have a weekly zoom game night with a group of kids.

I've read that the surgical mask should go first to act as a filter and also to keep the reusable mask cleaner. ETA: although I also see people doing it the other way around, so I dunno. That's the way he prefers it.

Yeah, it's not much different here (DH's county has been virtual since the break was over mostly because of staffing issues; they are supposed to go back Tuesday, but who knows?) But they CLAIM that this is a reflection of increased community transmission, not transmission in schools. I've run the numbers in our county and in the county north of us with no mask requirement, and there's a HUGE difference. The incident rate in our county is tracking pretty similar to the county overall. This isn't super comforting because the county overall is terrible (and the school community is, of course, part of the overall community and thus part of those numbers). There are a lot of caveats about comparing incidence rate in schools to the overall population. And our county doesn't break things down by staff vs. students. Purely anecdotally, my husband feels fairly safe personally, as a high school teacher who wears a good mask himself (two of them even), stays at least 8 feet away from any students, and strictly enforces mask use in his classroom. But not all teachers can do the same things--it's much harder for elementary school teachers to distance, for example. The schools are still doing things like sports and band practice without masks. They eat in the cafeteria without masks, obviously. I don't think it's truly safe for schools to be open at all right now in most of the country, with numbers as out of control as they are, and with a population apparently totally unwilling to make trade-offs like closing bars and restaurants and skipping the annual Christmas party this year to make schools safer. But I do see it as something reasonable people can disagree about; I can understand the argument that keeping schools open is worth some increased risk if that increased risk is fairly small. And I guess I'm just kind of in crisis mode thinking at the moment, where, sure--I'd rather my husband could teach online right now--but the people in far more danger are his friends at the school he used to teach at where they have full classes and no mask requirement (and very few students wearing masks, according to reports from his friends who are still there)...and, shockingly, way more sick teachers than his school. ETA: the current staffing issues in DH's county are definitely community transmission related, since teachers haven't been in classrooms in nearly a month.

Sock Fancy makes my favorite for most of the family who just does outside stuff or occasional quick shopping trips; they're 3 layers (cotton with a poly-fiber inner layer), filter pocket, and they fit well and have really good coverage: https://sockfancy.com/products/sock-fancy-mask. My husband wears a Happy Mask over a surgical mask when he's in his classroom.

Well, again, it makes MORE sense to me to be more cautious in those circumstances to reduce the chance of passing covid along to people we come in contact with, given our relatively high level of unavoidable exposure through my husband's school. ETA: not that we haven't been in a store or socialized outside at all; for the most part we were pretty cautious before school started and we're pretty cautious now, but we do leave the house.

...it does seem to me that in-school transmission in schools with strong safety protocols in place is fairly rare (although at a certain point when community spread gets high enough no amount of safety protocols can overcome staffing issues. And then who knows where the new variants take us). I wish that people would emphasize THAT more rather than just yelling that schools are safe. I'm not sure people in parts of the country where such safety protocols are the norm realize just how many kids are going to schools that are doing pretty much nothing to control spread.

oh, the terrible irony--if teachers aren't ACTUALLY at increased risk, but they THINK they are, so they go out and make themselves higher risk by hitting the bars after work! I have had fleeting thoughts that maybe we should just go ahead and book a Disney trip, because if we're going to get covid anyway I'd rather it was because we went to Disney than because my husband brought it home from math class 😂 The opposite is true for our family--we are MORE cautious, particularly around high risk family members, but also just in general--because my husband has a higher level of exposure. I guess I want to think well of other teachers and hope they're doing the same, but, yeah, who knows? I will say it's difficult to imagine teachers taking MORE risks than average in my area, because the average I observe is so terrible. Like I'm not sure how you'd even manage more to find more risk than what I see a lot of my neighbors doing.

I think a lot of it is that people very much WANT it to be true that schools aren't a problem. There's so little standardization of....anything that it's really difficult to draw conclusions. Every school system has different (or no!) safety protocols in place, every school system reports data (or doesn't!) in a different way, and every school system exists in a community with a different and constantly changing level of community spread. There's a new study out of North Carolina that's making the rounds here to show how super safe school is. But it's of I think 11 schools that all followed a set of safety protocols (hand washing, distancing (possible because all were hybrid), and masking). And it followed them for 9 weeks at the beginning of the school year, when numbers were relatively low, and found no evidence of significant transmission in schools. Great, but not all schools are following those protocols (I don't know of ANY near me that are still hybrid, and many don't even have a mask requirement), and you can't compare schools when community spread was low with schools when it's out of control. Everywhere I've seen reliable data shows a higher incidence rate for teachers and staff than for the community as a whole, even when the same is not true for students (and kids aren't tested nearly as often as adults, so I find numbers for kids less trustworthy). I have a hard time believing that's not because teachers are indoors with a whole bunch of people all day every day.